BUSY CANNING!

So far, I've canned about 20 pints of tomatoes, 20 quarts of hot cucumber pickles, and 15 pints of Fireballs (pickled hot green tomatoes!), and just two pints of apple sauce (just a few apples left on the early ripening tree.) I've also put up about 4 quarts of pesto in the freezer in little jars. I love bringing some of the taste of summer out in December through March. Next year, we expand the garden by another 4 raised beds and we WON'T plant zucchini! (I've also put about 12 loaves of zucchini bread in the freezer.)

We harvested about 100 bulbs of garlic earlier this summer, and used quite a few of them in the above mentioned pickles, along with our red hot peppers and some Joe's Long cayenne pepper.

We are all counting the days until we can open that first jar of pickles in mid-October and see how they turned out. For now, they provide a colorful assortment of food on my laundry room shelves.

HAPPY HARVEST EVERYONE!!

June in Jars!

My friend Nancy and I spent several hours yesterday making Strawberry Freezer Jam . . . 35 batches of it! We ended up with over 75 pints! This is going to taste sooooooo good next winter on toasted English muffins. A fresh taste of June strawberries from north of town preserved for months in my freezer will really hit the spot come January. We've got a couple in the fridge now, too, to top an angel food cake, or ice cream, or to be blended into frozen daiquiris or to top a summer cheesecake! Great year for strawberries! YMMMM YMMMM GOOD!